


Grape Juice

by BlueMoonHound



Series: Lucretia [12]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Eating Disorders, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insecurity, Nonsexual Nudity, Spa Day, Wine, did i mention that lucretia is a mess, implied past panmerle, just generally lucretia is a mess, self hate, that one canon conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 15:10:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13460844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: She basically murdered him, didn't she? She shouldn't have asked any of these questions, it's doing more harm than good. Merle, the Merle she knows, isn't vain or selfish. He throws his life away for the sake of knowledge and hope. What happened to that?She wonders if it's this bad for Magnus and Taako. Surely it's this bad for Taako. Magnus is a widower. She wishes she could go back in time and stab her past self in the back and then talk to her friends instead of being a fucking shut in. No, that wouldn't fix anything. They would have told her no. They would have said it wouldn't work. She made a decision, she's sticking to it. Oh gods, and Davenport. She feels sick. She drains her glass of wine. At least she didn't get rid of wine. At least the plane they ended up stuck in still has wine. She doesn't know what she'd do without wine.





	Grape Juice

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to TAZscripts on tumblr for their taz transcripts. A lotta the canon conversation was copied from there.

“Come in,” Lucretia says, sitting up a little straighter. She doesn't put down her pen, though, expecting the visit to be someone coming to drop off paperwork or similar. When Merle walks in, though, he doesn't drop papers on the table and leave, he pulls up a chair and sits down. It doesn't make sense for him to be here, he's on break, Lucretia gave him spa leave. He's supposed to be on vacation, not in his – _boss_ 's – office.

“Merle,” She says, but she doesn't stop writing, even though her heart hastens a little. She doesn't know why he's here. Maybe he'll just go. (It's just Merle, at least he's somewhat predictable, right? That's a lie, all four of the IPRE members she keeps in touch with are unpredictable.)

“Lucretia--”

“ _Madam director_ ,” she reminds. _Lucretia_ sounds so fucking bad out of his mouth right now, like he hasn't been saying it for a hundred years. She doesn't want him to say it.

“Right, Ma'am, I wanted to ask about the plus one on the spa vacation you gave me.”

Lucretia puts her pen down, finally, folds her hands in front of her and looks him in the face. “You want to know what the limits are.”

“Well, yes. I, well, I wanted to know if you wanted to come.”

Lucretia scrambles, trying to grasp this idea while keeping a steady face. She's pretty sure sadness appears for a moment, but only for a moment, short enough that an untrained eye might mistake it for confusion. She wonders what the most professional thing to say is in this situation. Finally, she leans back with a sigh.

“I'm sorry, Merle, but I'm just too busy lately. Things are getting hectic on this side of the desk.”

“If that side of the desk is getting hectic, step out from behind it! Paperwork can't be the only thing ya like doing.”

Lucretia frowns. “Merle, I--”

“No I insist, it'll be fun!”

Lucretia sighs.

“Aren't I one of your top reclaimers? We're special, right? A little _closer_ than the rest of the bureau. I can see it in your face.”

Lucretia inhales. He's right, the reclaimers are a little closer to her heart than the rest of the bureau. He's wrong about why, though, and she can't reveal that to him. She weighs her options. Tell him no, and refuse to take a break when she really needs one for the sake of her own sanity, and risk extra questions later. Tell him yes, and go with him, have a nice relaxing vacation, and risk questions _now_.

Later, she might not be up for questioning. At least on a spa trip, there's a chance there'll be wine.

She'd like some wine right now.

She lets out the breath she had been holding. “Alright, fine.”

“Ah shit!” Merle says. “Easiest director-wrangling ever.”

“Don't make me change my mind.”

“I won't.” Merle winks. “See ya tomorrow.”

Well, shit.

 

Lucretia doesn't actually know all that much about the spa she has on campus. The staff there seem nothing short of astonished to see her, let alone with Merle present. She stands for a moment at the entrance, watching Merle hop into the dressing room, completely at ease. She's going to have to – fuck, this was a bad idea.

She stops one of the attendees.

“We're not, like, a couple, you know that, right?”

The man starts and looks up at her. Fuck, she can't remember his name. There's too many people on this goddamn moonbase. “Ma'am?”

“Merle and I. We're not a couple. He asked me to come for reasons I haven't quite figured out.”

“Oh, um, of course,” he says. “Do you want me to --”

“I uh, well I'm not saying we should get separate treatments or anything, but I don't want… odd… questions.”

He hums. “Okay, Madam Director, makes sense to me.”

“Thank you,” Lucretia says. She heads into the dressing room.

It takes Lucretia a moment to decide what to do with her staff-- finally, she puts it in a demiplane, hoping that the light of creation won't lead anyone to finding it there. Finding the bulwark staff is always a risk, especially with how powerful it has become in the past few months.

Her clothes are almost a bigger issue-- she never looks at her body. She doesn't want to know what's become of her, what her bad habits have led to. She eventually takes off her robe, hangs it up, unbuttons her blouse, takes off her belt. It's not undressing that's the problem, it's the mirror. There's no mirror in her bedroom for a reason. Staring at her reflection, Lucretia has to take a steadying breath.

She's too thin, her ribs poking out of her torso like a fossil out of brushed earth, her belly concave and enunciated by the points of her hipbones. She's seen her face before, but attached to her body, her cheekbones are even more prominent. Her fingers aren't just long and thin, but skeletal. Her breasts droop, but at least she knows that's just old age, just the stupid lich elves, and not her fault. She puts her finger to her eye socket, pressing on a deep bruise. How many nights has it been since she slept? She doesn't bother counting on her fingers. Too many, that's for sure.

Lucretia runs a hand through her hair. It's almost time to cut it again. First, she's going to have to do this fucking spa trip. She can do it after the trip, this is about relaxing, she's supposed to _relax_. Gods almighty.

She washes her face, drinks some water, dons a towel and heads out of the dressing room, feeling exposed and defenseless.

Merle's already in the bath, looking extremely pleased with himself. He grins at her when she walks in. “Finally! I thought you got lost in there!”

“No, unfortunately I did not get lost.” Lucretia slides into the bath next to Merle's. This is so weird. _This is so weird_. At least she's seen Merle naked before. She wonders if he gets any _déjà vu_ from being around her.

The bath feels really good, though, and Lucretia enjoys twenty blissful seconds of warmth and quiet before Merle _has_ to ask some stupid question.

“So that's really your natural hair color, huh?” he says.

Lucretia purses her lips, looks at Merle, and takes a moment to consider her answer.

“Been a towhead my whole life,” she decides. It's true-- her hair has been practically platinum since she was born. She's starting to notice little white strands in the pale blonde, but the difference between the two colors is so tiny that she's sure no one else would notice or care.

“That's pretty funky,” Merle says. “My hair's starting to turn white in places. Nothin' to be afraid of.”

“I've never been afraid of my hair turning white,” Lucretia says, “Because it has always been white.”

“Lucky.”

Lucretia just huffs into the silence. She gets the feeling Merle still thinks she's lying, which bugs the hell out of her, because they're supposed to know each other. She sinks under the water. At least water doesn't want to question her honesty.

There's a lot of better things to question her honesty about, too. She wants to scream all of a sudden. This was a terrible idea.

 

She has a moment of freedom from Merle, though not, perhaps, her thoughts, for the next part of the spa trip. She's still very uncomfortable, but it's less because of what she knows and more because someone is touching her body. She takes steadying breaths and does not cry. She will _not_ cry.

“Madam, when was the last time you showered?” the woman tending to her asks.

She takes a deep breath. “That's none of your business.” Her voice is calm as a cucumber, despite her inner turmoil. That's a practiced skill of hers, a necessity in her situation.

“Self-care is important, Ma'am. I'm just worried about you.”

“It's not your job to be worried about me. And it's therefore not your concern if I am unhealthy.” She stares at the wall. It's an off white color.

The woman doesn't say anything else, and Lucretia's glad. She was very close to losing her tentative control on herself there. She can't stand herself, and she doesn't need a reminder of the ways she's wrong.

 

She doesn't sleep.

Thankfully, she's given a room to herself, so she could curl around her staff and stare at the wall and let some tears leak down her face (maybe) without Merle asking questions or jumping to conclusions he ought not to jump to. Having a room to herself doesn't help her sleep, though.

Maybe she sleeps, a little. She tells herself she might have drifted off for an hour. She doesn't want the staff to think they're doing a bad job. They're not doing a bad job, she just has a hundred extra years of baggage on her shoulders.

The next morning, she stumbles out of the little room, and is immediately whisked to another wacky spa treatment. She stops noticing things. Logically speaking, she knows what's happening, where she is, but if she was asked to list what happened that morning she'd come up blank. It's fine, though, because around 3 PM they start letting her drink wine, and at least wine is familiar and relaxing enough.

It's interesting, because this particular treatment has a separate little bath just for Merle's arm. She wonders how much this caters to their interests. Is it tailored for the participants? That would be a nice touch. She really ought to know more about her own spa.

She nibbles on a tea sandwich for a while, drinks some wine, and breathes. The room smells like dirt. She realizes then how much less tense her shoulders feel. The trip may not have been great on her mind, what with -well- everything, but her body seems to be enjoying it.

The spa attendants leave the room, shutting the door softly behind them. She watches the door for a moment before realizing the silence is perhaps awkward.

“Merle, I uh, I suppose I should thank you, it’s been a bit stressful for the past, ohh… like, 7, 8 years? So I guess I could use a break away from it all.” She hasn't had to think about the relics in two days, for that matter. She's thinking about them now, because she's thinking about not thinking about them, but gah. Paradoxes.

“I appreciate you choosing me-- I guess my question is, why did you decide to take me on this spa trip with you?”

“Ah, well, you know. You are my boss, and we haven’t really hit it off very well, and you know, you and I, we’ve got a lot in common. Got a little bit more in age, than the other two young whippersnappers.”

She laughs. He has no idea. She's so much younger than him, even now. Not that it would matter, because their species are completely different in terms of the aging process, but she's a young whippersnapper by all logical sense. Or maybe she's older? She remembers a hundred more years than any human ought to. She realizes she's completely unsure where she lands in terms of the age issue. “I-I suppose that is true.”

“I mean, you’re still much younger than me, but, you know.”

You can say that again. “Well, thank you for that.”

“You’re very mature. You’re a mature woman, and I’m a mature--” he pauses. “- _ish_ man. And you know, I read women pretty well. Women and trees.”

Lucretia bites back a laugh.

“And I was able to see: you know, this lady needs a break and a friend. I can be the friend, and I can help her get the break.”

“I appreciate you being considerate like that. You understand - I try not to be cold, it’s just. I have to keep a professional distance from my staff members.” Also known as: A reasonable distance from the people she hurt. She opens her mouth to continue, but Merle interrupts.

“You got a tough gig! Tough gig!”

Deep breaths. Wow. She hasn't hung out with Merle in-- well, since-- “It is a tough gig. I wish I could, you know, go on adventures and - eat macaroons all night long and gab about--”

“Macaroons or macarons? Cause I really love the macarons. You know, there’s a difference!”

“Is that what you call macaroni?” Wait, no, abort, there isn't cheese on this plane- Well, there is, but she invented it ---

Thankfully, Merle seems to know what Macaroni is. Oh, yeah, macaroni is the name for the noodle, not the dish. He laughs.“No no no. Macarons are like the cookies, but they’ve got a little icing in the middle. Mhm!”

“T-this has been pretty confusing so far - Merle, I wanna know a little bit more about, sort of… you always seem to keep kind of an irreverent attitude, I think it’s safe to say? Where does that come from?” She knows the answer the old Merle would have given. A small part of her wants to compare those two experiences, see how much she's hurt the people she loves. She always did have a masochistic side.

“Ah, basic insecurities. About my appearance, my height, my only having one damn arm now. Just always been that kind of guy! Hey, you know, why worry about things, have a light attitude. We’re not getting out of this life alive anyway! Why not enjoy the process?”

Merle has insecurities now? He's always been annoyed with his height, but it never was much of an insecurity, just angry old Merle. Maybe it was an insecurity. She swallows a mouthful of wine. She can feel him watching her and it's making her nervous. What happened to his reverent trust in Pan? He's still got that weird death thing going on, but… “I’m surprised to hear you can keep things sort of.. that lighthearted and still be a man…" wording, Lucretia. "A man of the cloth.”

“Well, I’m glad you brought that up. I’ve never been a traditional man of the cloth, I’m more like uh -” He rambles on about some social figure that may or may not actually be from this plane of existence. It's such a Merle thing to do in such a unMerle-y conversation that she feels like she's been slapped. She sips some more wine. “And, hey, I’m gonna be honest with you Director, because - I’ve been having some doubts. Some conflict, some tests of faith here over the last, what -”

Doubts? Merle?

“To be frank with you Merle, we’ve, we’ve both seen some pretty existentially horrifying things. How do you go about keeping the faith when you see such horrible things?” She guesses, he's probably got more respect for the gods now than he did in the century, because now there's no understanding that the gods are just fragments of broken universes, repeats over and over. She's wrong.

“Well, like I said, try to keep an open mind. And you know, while I think having that faith is important, because you need to have that relationship, and you need to have some idea about, you know, some idea about a higher power or a higher purpose. I’ve never been much of a church guy.” Merle, the creator of the church of Fungsten, not a church guy? She's not sure whether to laugh or cry. “I know as a priest that sounds a little weird, but yeah. I think it’s more important to just kind of embody the ideals and the things you wanna do and not make a bunch of _rules_ for people. Y’know.”

“So how did you settle on Pan as your patron deity? Is there a story there?” She knows she knows she knows she knows-

“Cool beard. Pan’s got a cool beard, like a goatee kind of beard-”

Not an answer she was expecting, but then, she doesn't plan for a lot of things...

“That’s, sorry. You’ve based your sort of theology and life direction on a--”

“On a beard. Yeah. Yeah! And you know, the cloven hooves are kinda cool. I’m a very shallow person, Director. I’m just really- I’m as shallow as a mud puddle. But you know, cool beard, hairy legs. I have hairy legs, I want my beard to be cool.”

Merle? Shallow? She's definitely dissociating again. At least it's reasonably easy to keep having this conversation when she's not thinking about it too hard. Hopefully she'll remember it later. It's worth recording.

“I see. There’s some synergy there.”

“There is. There’s a connection there. I grok Pan. So, you know at first it was 'Yeah! That guy's cool! I’d like to be like him!' And I was like a lot of other young dwarves, when I was a kid and the Pannites would come around with their literature and you know, their- their songs, their contemporary Pan songs, and you know it was all really cool. And we had Pan camps. You’d go to Pan camp and learn about Pan. And it was fun, it was a great way to socialize with people.

“Yeah no, a lot of I guess, important values being imparted.”

“Yeah, sure! Playing the pipes, cavorting, there’s a lot of cavorting at Pan camp.” Hah. “So, y’know, that’s how I kinda got dragged in, and next thing you know, I’m learning more about him, and boom bing boom I’m wearing the collar, and well I don’t really wear a collar, but you know what I’m saying.”

“I guess… I’m jealous, in a way. I wish I could have this sort of, comfort, that your deity brings you, that your faith in Pan brings to you. But I don’t think, I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to make that leap.” She's almost jealous of the silence in his mind. She wouldn't mind forgetting, she thinks. She wishes she had never drunk the ichor of the baby voidfish, in that moment. This conversation could go differently, then. She wouldn't have to watch her replies and hold her emotions in her chest.

“Well it’s kind of, well, lemme tell you something. It’s pretty much a one way street.” She's incredulous. “Old Pan, I don’t think Pan really cares. Doesn’t really give a shit whether or not I’m his buddy or not. It’s all about how it makes me feel.”

His wooden hand starts tapping its fingers. She stares at it for a moment, wondering if this Pan understands how important Merle is to the universe. “Oh I don’t- I don’t know about that.”

It takes him a moment to realize what she's looking at. He makes a very strange face, somewhere between hopeful and annoyed.

“Oh. Well, maybe Pan does give a shit.” He laughs. “But you know what, here’s the thing. Here’s my feeling on faith, and maybe this’ll help ya. I’m not trying to convert ya - although I do have a couple of those Pan tracts if you wanna take a look at them.”

She almost shakes her head. She's seen them all before, she's sure.

“But my thing is: if my faith and believing in Pan helps me get through the tough times, hey! What’s the harm? If it helps me- if it helps me get through stressful things and helps me get past all the goo and the blegh and all the blood and stuff, hey! Works to my advantage.”

She basically murdered him, didn't she? She shouldn't have asked any of these questions, it's doing more harm than good. Merle, the Merle she knows, isn't vain or selfish. He throws his life away for the sake of knowledge and hope. What happened to that?

She wonders if it's this bad for Magnus and Taako. Surely it's this bad for Taako. He's missing his other half. Magnus is a widower. She wishes she could go back in time and stab her past self in the back and then talk to her friends instead of being a fucking shut in. No, that wouldn't fix anything. They would have told her no. They would have said it wouldn't work. She made a decision, she's sticking to it. Oh gods, and Davenport. She feels sick. She drains her glass of wine. At least she didn't get rid of wine. At least the plane they ended up stuck in still has wine. She doesn't know what she'd do without wine.

“Whoa, easy! Easy goin’ Sister Sue!”

 _Oh goodness, Merle,_ _comparing me to_ _Sister Sue is being too gracious_. Her heart beats a little fast in her chest. A lot fast? She has no frame of reference. “I appreciate you telling me more about this. I-I want you to understand, my whole life I dedicated myself to the study and the service of other people's discoveries, of other people's adventures. I was a supporter. But one day I made the decision to… stop championing other people's heroism and to take the direction of my life into my own hands. And, I lost dear, dear friends because of that decision, but it was the only one to make. So, I admire your faith Merle, I do, but I think I’m done waiting on anyone to fix my problems for me.”

“Oh no, Pan doesn’t fix problems! Let’s take a look at the stub where my arm used to be, I think it’s more problem _causing_. But hey!”

The hand is angry again. She wants to sink under the mud bath and become one with the floor of the tub. _Oh, Merle. You and Pan, you fixed so many problems when you remembered yourself. You're a savior of worlds, Merle._  

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! But you gotta stand for something, or you’re gonna fall for anything. So listen! You have got faith: it’s faith in - in _you_.”

“I guess that’s a good way of putting it. Let's get some more booze up in here.” She needs more wine right now.

“YEAH, let’s do that! Here, lemme pour that for ya.” He holds out the bottle, and she obliges. It makes that satisfying chugging noise as it empties into her glass. She immediately drinks a mouthful.

“What is this by the way? What's this purple shit you’re drinking?”

“Grape juice.”

“Oh. How old is it?”

“125 years old.” Almost as old as she is. She likes finding old wines and comparing them to her own age.

“Ahh, you know, there's a name for grape juice that’s 120-something years old!”

“That was what my jokes sound like.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna- We’re gonna work on that.”

 _Nope, no we are not_ , she decides. She doesn't comment, however, just drinks a little more wine. She's feeling pleasantly buzzed.

“How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“What keeps you going, at the end of the day?”

She could say several things here. She could say something about the relics, or about the war, or old friends-- none of those would be lies. In the end, she picks a single word. “Memories.” She sighs.

“Hm. Memories. I'm not so great with those.”

She shrugs. “It's not a matter of remembering, exactly, I… It's more a matter of knowing what happened. Which I do. I keep things written down.”

“That's smart.”

“Mhm.”

She finishes her second glass of wine, then. A fairly large and pervasive part of her wants to get utterly smashed. She knows she has to keep herself on the lucid side of drunk, though, because of where she is. She doesn't pour herself more as a result.

 

It's a huge relief when she has the chance to wear her clothes again. She feels much safer with her robe and her staff, even if she didn't anticipate any threats at the spa – people did ask questions about her body, which still puts a gross feeling in the back of her throat, but at least no one was attacking them while they were there.

The spa trip was a much needed break, but it's a great relief to be back at work nonetheless. She wonders, while filing away some information on the temporal chalice's location, whether Merle has a thing for her. After all, she looks like an older human woman, it's not beyond possibility. She's sure he'll drop that when this is all done and he remembers his real connection to Pan.

 _Gods almighty, this sucks balls_.

She does make herself take a couple hours off before bed that evening, showering and making herself a proper meal for dinner rather than eating pgorp in her room quickly before returning to work. She sleeps better in her own bedroom than she did in the spa.

Probably because her own bedroom is set up to look like the room she had on the starblaster, little thoughts-eating jellyfish and all.


End file.
